Gale's Ghost
by shellbell0944
Summary: One-shot on Gale's POV during the scene where him, Katniss, Plutarch etc. get shots of Katniss in the woods outside of District 12's ruins. There was a point where Katniss throws Gale a berry and they say Effie's Hunger Games catch phrase. It's a glimpse of Gale's emotions and thoughts while he is in the woods again with Katniss.


Gale's POV during berry scene in Mockingjay

"And as you walk through death's dark veil

The cannon's thunder can't prevail

And those who hunt thee down will fail

And you will be my ain true love

And you will be my ain true love"

-Alison Krauss "You Will Be My Ain True Love"

Even with District 12 lying behind us in ashes and burnt up bones, it feels natural being together in our lush woods, so oddly untouched by all the war tearing up the country. Although we've got a camera crew leeched to us, drinking in our every move, it feels free to be out here again with Katniss. Katniss and I haven't been in the woods together since the first time I saw her after she accepted Peeta's proposal in the Capitol. I had been here since then, but thinking about the bombing weighs down my chest until I can hardly breathe. Which is ironic since I've been underground with stuffy, recycled air for several months now. I've never told anyone, but sometimes living in District 13 makes me feel like I'm buried alive. As if what happened to my father has come full circle and transpired against me in 13, but somehow I'm still able to survive. The rare times when I'm alone, I feel angry that the carved out underground is what's keeping me alive while it only brought death to my father.

Someone clears their throat and I shake myself out of my thoughts. I wouldn't mind the despondency as much if the cameras weren't here dissecting our every emotion, because it's a reminder to me of why I am fighting in this rebellion. Heck, they probably wouldn't mind seeing the darker emotions from Katniss and me, but unlike Plutarch, that's not something I really care about showing them. I don't see how my emotions can affect the rebellion. Katniss' sure, I mean she is the Mockingjay after all, but my emotions don't amount to a hill of beans. I'd rather they just let the bones of our District's citizens and the ruins of our small world declare the injustices. No words or expressions are really needed.

But I also can't help thinking about the last time I showed up at our meeting place at the rock where we stand now. I remember finding the path to the cabin laid out for me in the snow. The time she told me President Snow threatened my life, and our family's lives, because I kissed one of the "star-crossed lovers of District 12." The time I toasted bread for us, and wished it would remind her that she _could_ choose me. She could choose to marry _me,_ and not Peeta. The time I held her body close to mine for the first time, the way I had wanted to for a year. The time I finally told her I loved her and she didn't say it back.

I feel a rush of all the emotions I felt that day, even though it feels like so long ago. So much has happened since that moment, and being back in our woods serves as a reminder of how much can happen in so little time. My life has been a constant reminder of how much can happen in one day. An explosion at the mine one day killed my father, simultaneously taking away my hero and forcing me to become the head of the household at 14. During one lonely day, I gained a hunting partner who would change my life inexplicably. During the last two reaping days, the girl who meant everything to me was taken away and condemned to suffer through the Hunger Games. One day during the Hunger Games interviews I found myself listening to a boy I never imagined as a contender for Katniss' affections proclaim his love for her and, come to find out, effectively erase "us" as a possibility. On an ordinary hunting day, I found a new Head Peacekeeper who whipped me within an inch of my life. The final day of the Quarter Quell, my entire district was obliterated. And finally, one day while keeping the remaining District 12 civilians alive in the woods, a hovercraft appeared and transported us to District 13, which also had not existed to our knowledge until that day. For better or worse, these days defined my life, made me who I am, and they have never let me return to the past. Only the present and future propel my life.

I look up from the rock Katniss and I used to share everyday. Those days no longer exist, and as much as I want to hold onto them, I know that they will never happen again. Not really, anyways. There is too much distance now that neither of us can close. Even when I find her in a broom closet or hiding behind a laundry machine I never feel close to her. Not when I sit next to her in the District 13 cafeteria and eat our bland food. Not when we're fighting side by side for the rebellion that I wanted and that she chose to support as well. Not even when we hunt in 13's woods.

I never imagined we would get like this. I never imagined that I couldn't bring her happiness, and be what she needed. For so many years we survived together, and needed each other's skills to keep our families alive. When she officially became the Mockingjay and appointed me as her #2, I felt like _I_ was the one she needed again. Like I was her partner in this next horrific segment of her life, her 76th Hunger Games where all of Panem was converted into an arena. Maybe she really did need me by her side, but all that seems to be slipping away like snow in an avalanche that neither of us can control.

I force my eyelids to blink and shake away how far my mind has gone, and suddenly I am met with the only pair of gray eyes that I see in my dreams. Her fingers are locked around a blackberry and she said something just a moment ago. I didn't hear it, but I instinctively know what she said. Her thin arm shoots the berry up high into the air, and I stare at her for a moment not sure if I want to respond back when I know what I would say is a complete fallacy in her life, in every one of the lives of the people in the Districts. We haven't uttered these words since the day she was reaped and I don't want to finish the phrase because the last time I did she was taken from me and tortured in the Capitol's fishbowl of horrors.

It doesn't matter that she is looking intently into my eyes, waiting to see if I'll respond, hoping that we can go back to the way we were. How can we carry on when she is stuck in a dematerialized world? You see, Katniss lives in the past and maybe that's why we seem to be losing one other. She struggles everyday with all of the changes and what's been destroyed since we last spoke these words. It's not what she and I lost that plagues her. Although it constantly invades my mind like an enemy I can't defeat, she is persecuted by a different sorrow. A memory of another haunts her everywhere she goes. The deaths of thousands of people pale her skin more than the lack of sun. I once found her counting numbers and names in the laundry room, her eyes wide and empty, her skin so translucent I thought my hand might pass right through her. Nothing has cleared the interminable haze of nightmares in her mind. Not the morphling, not the broom closet, not hunting in 13's woods, not her duties as Mockingjay...and not me. And what's worse is that she doesn't comprehend the shadows growing in her mind. She's always been rather unaware, but it's heartbreaking to watch it this time.

I know that what she wants in this moment is to live in our past, even if we know it's futile. For some reason, this moment feels like goodbye. To her, it probably feels like the opposite.

She threw the berry higher than normal because she wasn't sure that I would catch it, wasn't sure if we could go back. The berry is suspended in the air as these thoughts hang in our minds, unspoken but known to the other. We both know our past here is over. I don't know what she wants for me, but I know what she needs from me and what I want for her. The berry's trajectory arcs towards me, and as it does I open my mouth, catch the berry, and softly tell her, "and may the odds be ever in your favor."


End file.
